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Nth Degree Software
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MindSightsTM
Personal Innovation
“Facilitated Thinking Environment”
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Nth Degree Software
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MindSightsTM
Personal Innovation
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Task 1: Jump Start your Innovation
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Purpose:
Many times the hardest
thing to do is simply … getting started. So find a quiet place and even if
it is only 30 minutes begin to identify ways to improve your job.
Start by looking for
ideas and opportunities for improvement from things that are under your
direct control. Not only will you be helping your company but finding ways
to make a better job for yourself, improving your innovation skills, and
boosting your career potential … all at the same time. More
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Instructions
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Use the following
facilitated thinking trigger questions to help generate ideas and
opportunities. Then list the first 15-25 ideas that come to mind, even if
they don’t seem logical or feasible.
Click on thinklet for more tools to stimulate your thinking.
Facilitated
Thinking Questions:
- If
you had total control, what would you change about your job?
- What
is the easiest thing you can change to improve your job?
- Is
there work you can eliminate because it is no longer needed?
- What aspects of your job do you like
least? How can you improve them?
- What might you be spending too much
time on?
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Thinklets
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Go
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More Jump Start Innovation Questions
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Go
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Personal Brainstorming
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Thinking
Workspace: Record
ideas here or on your Creative Ideas List
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jumpques
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Facilitator Questions
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Idea/Opportunity
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What is the one thing that would make a tremendous difference
in your job?
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What is the purpose of you job and what are you really trying
to get done?
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How could new tools and resources could help you improve your
job.
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How would changing your work relationships make your job
better?
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What can you do to make the job more productive?
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What can you do to improve the quality of your work?
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What would you like to organize better?
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What areas are you not spending enough time? What needs to be
done?
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What areas are you not
spending enough time?
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How can you improve
quality?
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Where can time be saved?
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What information would simplify your job?
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What have you complained about and how can you make it better?
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What is the purpose of you job and what are you really trying
to get done?
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How could new tools and resources help you improve your job.
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personal
Personal
Brainstorming
Why
Use It
Individual brainstorming
tends to produce more ideas than group brainstorming because people are freer
to create ideas/solutions without the worry of other people’s opinions.
However, personal brainstorming may not develop as effective ideas, because
an individual does not have the experience of a group and cannot piggyback
ideas on those of others.
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Task
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Description
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1
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Find a quiet spot and
get relaxed.
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2
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Write out your
challenge, “What would I change about
my job?”. Concentrate on it for a few minutes, but do not think about
ideas or solutions yet … just what the facts are.
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3
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Decide to generate a
predetermined number of ideas/solutions. This will help get you past the
trap of stopping at the first good idea that comes up.
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4
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Walk away and do
something else for 5-10 minutes. This gets your conscious mind off the problem
and gives your subconscious time to work.
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5
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Come back and start
writing ideas as fast as you can. DO NOT analyze ideas but write fast and
write whatever occurs to you, even if the ideas seem foolish or
nonsensical. Do this for 2-3 minutes or until responses stop.
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6
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Next generate more ideas
by pretending you are someone else that is involved in the problem or
situation. Write ideas as if you were those people?
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7
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If you need more ideas, pick
some key words from your problem or challenge and use a Thesaurus to change
meanings. Use these words to trigger ideas.
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8
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Next, read and review
the list of ideas that you have written.
Narrow the list to the top 3-5 ideas. Improve upon each idea by
looking at an idea’s negatives or disadvantages and find ways to remove or
minimize them.
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9
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Finally, decide what
idea is best to implement.
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navi
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Personal Innovation Overview
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Turn yourself from an “ordinary” employee into an “innovator” employee.
While Innovation articles have
been telling organizations to “innovate
or die”, there has been very little written about the need for personal
innovation. The fact is sitting at the very heart of innovation is the
individual. And it’s those individuals who acquire the skills and the
companies who encourage individual innovation who will gain significant
competitive advantages.
The idea
that everyone in the organization is an innovator is a radical departure from
how things used to be. In the past, workers were often instructed not to
be thinkers, not to have ideas, and
certainly not to ask many
questions. Today we know that front line workers with their unique and
invaluable perspectives can with the right tools create brilliant
innovations.
As Procter and Gamble’s CEO A.G. Lafley warns in his book, The Game Changer, “If
Knowledge workers don't make a commitment to support and practice innovation,
they will be left behind by a world becoming much more innovative.”
So … whether you like it or not,
innovation is coming to your organization and you might as well get ahead of the
curve because … your job … your career … and your company depend on it.
skills
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Personal Innovation Skill-sets
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Innovative thinking is about managing change … not
about solving problems.
Problem
Solving thinking skills vs. Innovative thinking skills
For the past century;
problem solving (and scientific) thinking have dominated how we were taught
and how we performed on the job.
Obviously, acquiring
problem solving skills will always be necessary. However, the time has come
that we need to more fully develop innovative thinking skills.
Innovative
thinking vs. problem solving thinking
- Problem Solving
Thinking: The ability to analyze known
data/information in order to find cause and effect relationships and
then develop an appropriate solution. In the main, the thinking skills
associated with solving problems focus on studying the past and
analyzing data that already exists.
- Innovative Thinking:
The ability to anticipate unknown future data/information to determine
what actions are needed now to prepare for an unpredictable future.
Innovative thinking, on the other hand, embraces “Change” by focusing on
studying the future and analyzing data that may not even exist yet.
Innovation thinking requires a certain mindset, one that
tolerates change, and even one that flourishes on it. As important as
acquiring problem solving skills are and will continue to be … the time has
come to focus on developing the following innovative thinking skills.
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Innovative Thinking Skills
Click on link
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Description
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Questioning
skills
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The cornerstone of
innovative thinking is good questioning abilities. But for centuries thinking
has focused on problem solving by finding the right “answers” or
“solution.” Innovation, however, is
not about solving problems it’s
about managing change by finding the right “questions” to ask to find the
right innovation opportunity.
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Systems Thinking
skills
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As more of everything
becomes inter-connected … the less problems and opportunities exist in
isolation. Developing innovative
solutions in one area that causes problems in another is NOT innovation …
it’s just bad business. Systems thinking looks beyond what
appears to be an independent situation and gives you the broader picture in
which the problem or opportunity resides.
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Futures Thinking
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Futures thinking
represents a shift away from a traditional problem solving which focuses on
taking action to fix or resolve a current situation. Futures thinking focusing on what the
future “should be” and identifying
actions to get there.
In fact, Many people
believe it is impossible to think realistically or know anything about the
future … so the future can simply be ignored. Yet, almost every crisis
results from failures to anticipate a likely eventuality. And in
retrospect, we often recognize that the crisis was perfectly preventable
had some Futures Thinking been done.
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Creative Thinking
skills
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Historically, society
and business have ridden on the shoulders of great creative geniuses.
Because of this many people now believe creativity is magical and calls
upon vast hidden powers. We need to
realize that all of us have creative abilities. Maybe not to the extent of
daVinci or Einstein, but we can do some wonderfully creative things.
The
creativity gap that ordinary people like you and me face is because … most
of us have never been trained or asked to use our creative talents. For
most of our school and work lives we have been trained to think analytically.
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Critical Thinking
skills
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No matter how effective
your overall thinking abilities, it does little good if the data /
information you are thinking about is incomplete, misunderstood, or
inaccurate … or if you apply biased thinking to the information.
Critical thinking gives
you the ability to acquire valid information and think about it in an
unbiased way.
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